The Russian oligarch in Britain and ship 'taking arms’ to Syria

A Russian oligarch coming to London 2012 for the Olympics is caught up in an
international row over a ship 'exporting arms' to the Syrian regime.

Dr Lisin, a keen marksman with his own grouse shooting estate in Scotland, has now emerged as the owner of a shipping company alleged to have transported a boat load of weapons just a fortnight ago from St Petersburg to SyriaPhoto: AFP

As one of Russia’s most senior Olympic officials with a £10 billion personal fortune, Vladimir Lisin will come to London this summer with a very special role to play. The oligarch is offering $1 million (£650,000) as reward to every Russian athlete who wins gold at the 2012 games.

But in contrast to his largesse in London, he finds himself implicated in a growing scandal over the shipment of Russian weapons to Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad is waging a brutal war against his own people.

Dr Lisin, a keen marksman with his own grouse shooting estate in Scotland, has now emerged as the owner of a shipping company alleged to have transported a boat load of weapons just a fortnight ago from St Petersburg to Syria.

The claims concern the cargo delivered by the Professor Katsman, a container ship, which docked in Tartus, Syria’s second biggest port, on May 26th, one day after the massacre of more than 100 people in Houla.

Many of the victims were children, who were summarily executed in an atrocity that sparked international revulsion. Last Wednesday, a further 80 civilians were systematically killed in the village of Qubair by pro-government militias, and yesterday, opposition activists claimed Syrian tanks had bombarded a neighbourhood in the southern city of Deraa, where the first seeds of unrest were sown in March last year, killing at least 17.

The latest atrocities have prompted Western governments to launch a new push for harsher sanctions against the Syrian regime, which maintains its grip thanks partly to Russian weapons supplies.

The United States has described the docking of the Professor Katsman as of “the utmost concern”, while a senior Tory MP has said the British Government should now “question the morality” of Dr Lisin’s position as an official Russian delegate enjoying “British hospitality” at London 2012.

The Professor Katsman is registered to North West Shipping Company, which in turn is owned by Universal Cargo Logistics (UCL), one of several businesses in Dr Lisin’s empire.

The oligarch is Russia’s second richest man, having made his fortune, estimated at £10.2 billion, in the steel industry.

UCL admitted last week that the container vessel had docked in Syria, but said the firm had no knowledge of the cargo’s contents. The company said the cargo had been placed in sealed containers and passed by Russian customs officials. The shipping documentation listed the goods as 'general cargo and electrical equipment’.

Since there are no United Nations sanctions currently imposed on Syria - not least because Russia has blocked any such move - UCL said it was doing nothing wrong in transporting the cargo.

But the shipment has cast a spotlight on Russia’s role in aiding and abetting the Assad regime, which has long been one of its best weapons customers in the Middle East. It is thought the cargo contained weapons supplied by Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state owned arms exporter. Rosoboronexport has failed to deny the claims, fuelling criticism that Russia is pro-actively propping up President Assad during its most murderous phase.

The attention will not be welcomed by Dr Lisin, who unlike fellow oligarchs such as Roman Abramovich, has largely managed to remain in the shadows. Despite his vast wealth, he rarely give interviews.

Despite his previously low profile, Dr Lisin, 56, will come to London as a key player in Russia’s bid to reclaim its status as a sporting superpower.

After disappointing performances in both Beijing in 2008 and at the Vancouver winter Olympics in 2010, Dr Lisin, already president of the Russia Shooting Union, was drafted in to revive fortunes. He was appointed vice president of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and president of the national federation of summer sports. Russia’s athletes will each receive a $1 million bonus for winning gold with the money stumped up by Dr Lisin, who will be part of Russia’s official delegation at London 2012.

“He is the head of the association of summer sports. He’s the richest person in Russia,” said Akhmed Bilalov, another ROC vice-president, “If he gives each person $1 million it’s not very much for him.”

Sources have told The Sunday Telegraph that Dr Lisin is currently scouting London for a suitably grand venue in which officials from the summer sports federation can entertain guests.

A four-storey mansion close to Piccadilly, which was acquired last year by an anonymous Russian buyer for £75 million, is being mooted as the likely venue.

Dr Lisin is thought to be a frequent visitor to the UK. In 2005, he bought Aberuchill Castle, a 3,300 acre estate in Perthshire, for £6.8 million. A keen marksman, he was said to have fallen in love with the grouse shooting and deer stalking available on the estate on the banks of Loch Earn.

He was also linked last year to the purchase for £140 million of an Oxfordshire mansion - the most expensive property ever sold in the UK - although sources have subsequently denied his involvement.

His rise is a remarkable one. Dr Lisin was a welder before studying metal engineering at a university in Siberia. The father-of-three’s career progressed to running a steel works in Kazakhstan before being promoted to the board of Novolipetsk Steel. He made his billions in steel before moving into other businesses but it remains the basis of his fortune.

The suggestion that the Professor Katsman was carrying weapons was first reported by Al Arabiya television, a Saudi owned news channel, backed by the Saudi royal family and which itself is opposed to the Assad regime. Western diplomatic sources told the Reuters news agency that the claim was “credible” while Bloomberg news agency said a “person with direct knowledge of the matter” had confirmed the ship was “loaded with arms”.

Human Rights First, a New York-based human rights organisation, began tracking the vessel, first picking it up off the coast of Greece on May 23rd and followed it to Cyprus on May 24th. Human Rights First said the ship had appeared to switch off its transponder on May 26th as it headed towards Syria. Its docking was later confirmed to have taken place in Tartus in the afternoon.

Human Rights First admits that it is unable to “verify that this ship was carrying weapons”. But it points out that had there been no weapons on board, the Russian authorities could have set the record straight by publishing the ship’s manifest.

“Russian weapons have been documented at the site of atrocities in Syria,” Human Rights First said last week, adding: “and if Russian weapons continue to be supplied and used in the commission of crimes against humanity in Syria, it makes Rosoboronexport and the Russian authorities directly complicit in enabling these crimes.”

Rosoboronexport, which will exhibit at the Farnborough International Airshow next month, has refused to comment on the allegations. The company is Syria’s main weapons supplier, accounting for almost 80 per cent of its conventional weapons imports in the past five years.

Dr Lisin was also unavailable for comment, but in a statement issued by UCL, parent company of North West Shipping Company, his firm said: “The cargo was taken on board at the port of St Petersburg in closed and sealed containers.

“Prior to being loaded on board, the cargo went through all the legally required verifications, including customs control. In this case, the cargo owner was the one responsible for going through the said procedures, not the carrier or the ship owner.

“North Western Shipping Company is not the owner of the cargo, therefore none of the company personnel has any knowledge as to the specific nature of the cargo in the sealed containers.

“The cargo description indicated in the shipping documentation – general cargo and electrical equipment – does not allow the cargo carrier to know the specific characteristics of the cargo.

“It bears repeating that UCL Holding acts in strict compliance with the Russian and international law, including waterborne cargo transportation regulations.”

A source close to Dr Lisin insisted he took no management role in his shipping companies, and therefore was very unlikely to know anything about a particular cargo. “If you happen to own a company that owns a company that owns a company that owns a boat, it’s not really fair to ask about a specific cargo,” said the source.

Last night Dr Lisin’s spokesman said that all future shipments would be checked to ensure no items “used to harm civilians” would be transported to Syria.

In a statement his spokesman said: “UCL Holding operates than 450 vessels, and its shareholder is not involved in operational activities.

“But he is sure that the management of the company has not violated, does not violate and will not violate international law in future, and will perform all necessary procedures when transporting goods.

“We are confident that the management of the company will take all necessary measures not to participate in the transportation of goods which are used to harm civilians.”

But the claims that Dr Lisin’s company is acting entirely legally in the absence of UN sanctions — and therefore that any possible weapons exports is justifiable has angered opponents both in the US and UK.

Susan Rice, US envoy to the United Nations, said last week: “With respect to the reported docking of a ship carrying Russian arms, this is obviously of the utmost concern given that the Syrian government continues to use deadly force against civilians.

“It is not technically, obviously, a violation of international law since there is not an arms embargo, but it is reprehensible that arms would continue to flow to a regime that is using such horrific and disproportionate force against its own people.”

John Baron, a Conservative MP on the Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Sunday Telegraph: “The Government should question the morality of giving British hospitality to someone who is helping to export arms to Assad’s regime in Syria.”

The Russia Studies Centre, part of the Henry Jackson Society, a foreign affairs think-tank, said EU member states should investigate the shipment, on the grounds that UCL has an office in Amsterdam.

Michael Weiss, co-chair of the Russia Studies centre, said: “Russia is using shipping companies to do its dirty work. At the very least the EU has to investigate this and see if Lisin’s company has fallen foul of EU sanctions on Syria.”